The reasons folks had for voting No for the Bond were as varied as days in the year (the unfortunate negativity of the St. Petersburg Times and the Temple Terrace Beacon didn’t help). The primary reasons appear to be the proposed density of the downtown plan, the proposed 18 story condo tower, locating public buildings like the City Hall and Performing Arts Center, some thought the Master Plan was “too big” or didn’t like the fact that we are down to one developer in the Request for Proposal process and some folks just didn’t want to pay the 1 mill tax increase.

One of the more serious issues to come from the August 2^nd Bond defeat is that some Vote No folks feel the Bond defeat gives them a mandate to pursue selfish agendas. Some would like to reverse our current redevelopment process of finding a New Urbanist Master Developer that will build “the citizen plan” and just send the proposal back out for a developer, any developer, so that they can build whatever makes them a profit. This short sighted effort, sold under the guise of expediency (those debts need to be paid…), is often intertwined with a desire to enable friends and buddies “getting in on the action.”

Regardless, the Downtown Revitalization and the general Revitalization of Temple Terrace will continue and is continuing despite the August 2^nd Referendum Bond defeat! The real meaning behind the August 2^nd defeat is that we will not have the Bond money for the public infrastructure as planned. The first phase of the project will need to be scaled back, not necessarily because of the solidarity of the No! voters (which doesn’t exist), but because we simply don’t have the Bond money to construct Phase 1 as the citizens have initially master planned it. Since we are scaling Phase 1 back out of necessity, it is the proper time to implement some of the revisions recommended by the Yes! and the No! voters alike.

Despite August 2^nd, positive change large and small is happening all around us and its going in one positive direction, that is, towards making a better Temple Terrace for our children and us. Here’s a few of the local initiatives that are proceeding to Revitalize our city:

a) The Temple Terrace Preservation Society is restarting the Historic Homes Tour this year after many years of not having one, the Society has also received a Grant from the State to update our Historic Resources Survey which is the first step towards putting individual properties on the National Historic Register and creating a Temple Terrace Thematic Historic District. TTPS will also begin collecting oral histories from our oldest residents on their recollections of old Temple Terrace.

b) A group of neighbors have been working with the Country Club to naturalize the golf course pond on hole 3, thus far they’ve added an aerator fountain, landscaping, and fish.

c) A group of citizens have begun to informally replant oaks and pines in the roughs of the golf course

d) The Friends of the Temple Terrace Parks and Recreation Dept. have adopted the re-introduction of bats to Temple Terrace as one of their main projects, this effort will culminate in the reconstruction of our 1920s Temple Terrace Bat Tower constructed by Dr. Campbell to control malaria carrying mosquitoes. The group has received a $1000 anonymous donation to begin placing bat roost boxes in local natural areas. A single bat can eat hundreds of mosquitoes an hour.

e) The Temple Terrace Parks and Recreation Department has received a $150,000 State grant to beautify 56^th Street from Busch Boulevard to Fowler

f) $500,000 has been allocated by the Federal Government towards beautifying Busch Boulevard from 56^th Street to Florida Avenue

g) Regarding the Downtown Revitalization, Pepin Distributing will spearhead a capital campaign to raise $2 million and the Federal Government has allocated an additional 2.4 million. In addition, Temple Terrace Parks and Recreation is applying for a $250,000.00 Matching Grant for the Redevelopment Park along the river.

h) The Temple Terrace Garden Club has almost finished their rehabilitation of Woodmont Park which includes irrigation, benches, landscaping and plant markers.

i) A new group has been created called Friends of Bonnie Brae Park that will raise money for new play equipment for their park.

j) The Woodmont Clubhouse Association will begin a fundraising campaign to restore the circa 1922 Woodmont Clubhouse.

k) Lastly, the CRTT welcomes a new grassroots activist group dedicated towards positive change and making Temple Terrace a better place to live into the fold. The group is called Citizens for Development in Temple Terrace (CDITT) and their website is http://www.cditt.com/. The more positive grassroots groups Temple Terrace has the merrier!

Here’s some additional regional news that relates to our Revitalization:

Supporters for a New Tampa Cultural Center have given up on their efforts to create a $20 million 650 seat theater arts facility in New Tampa, although this is not good news for New Tampa, it strengthens the rationale for Temple Terrace creating its own Cultural Education Complex in the downtown Revitalization area.

A 200,000 square foot Wal-Mart Supercenter is proposed for a 34.9 acre parcel of land between Temple Terrace Highway and Harney Road. The rezoning hearing for the Wal-Mart is scheduled for October 17^th, 6pm, at the Hillsborough County Commissioners Boardroom, second floor, Fred B. Karl County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.. Instead of building its huge monolithic box prototype it would be advantageous if Temple Terrace would request a store that is a little more regionally and community friendly which is the direction Wal-Mart has been going in other cities that have demanded it. Here’s a recent article form the Wall Street Journal on the advent of regionally and community sensitive Wal-Marts.

Under Pressure, ‘Big Box’ Chains Redesign Stores

The University Square Mall appears to be on its last legs. A recent Tampa Tribune article described the mall has becoming a “working class mall” and it’s struggle to survive is based on increasing competition with newer malls, especially those being built in Pasco County. USF holds classes in the old movie theaters and has become an investor. There has been speculation that it may be the future site of a new USF Football Stadium.

The City of Oldsmar has chosen Clearwater developer JES Properties to build their $64-million 5.5 acre downtown revitalization plan, it is envisioned to be walkable, mixed use….sound familiar?

Sulphur Springs has formed an Action League that will refurbish Sulphur Springs Park culminating in the placement of a 224-foot elevator within the Sulphur Springs Water Tower for public viewing. The elevator was originally part of the towers 1920s design but was never installed.

Tampa Mayor Pan Iorio recently sent a Letter to the Editor to the Tribune titled “A Vision for Downtown Tampa”. Here’s a link to that article . In her article Mayor Iorio outlines a Vision for Tampa’s downtown that is surprisingly similar to our own Downtown Vision: a livable, walkable, mixed use, downtown that is vibrant and alive. Which city will be the first to build this Vision? Stay tuned…..

Related posts:

1. Latest News (September 20, 2003):
2. Latest News (June 22, 2005)
3. Latest News (February 13th, 2005)

A New Town Center, Temple Terrace, Florida: Evaluation of the Proposal Submitted by Unicorp in Response to the City’s RFP

The report includes a a 125 line-item evaluation of the Unicorp proposal and a comprehensive analysis of the Developer Pro Forma submitted on July 14. When you read page 9, please be sure to note the following statement in response to the questions raised by TCC and LNR:

“Based on SPPRE’s extensive experience in public/private partnerships, we believe that the Town Center Redevelopment project is viable, is attractive to the development community, and will generate non-tax income and tax revenue for the City thereby minimizing City investment and managing risk.”

Read the entire report here: SPPRE Evaluation

Please remember to
VOTE YES on the referendum August 2. YES means you support the revitalization of our downtown area. It will demonstrate clear endorsement of the City’s commitment to do our share as partners in our new mixed-use downtown. It is NOT a vote for any particular developer partner. Selection of a developer is ongoing and the citizens have a strong voice in the decision-making process. We are prudent, careful and wise in handling these matters. We will not make a hasty decision without careful analysis of the implications. The future of Temple Terrace is at stake.

Related posts:

1. Latest News (June 22, 2005)
2. Latest News (July 12th, 2003)
3. Latest News (July 19, 2004)

There has been talk recently about the Downtown Revitalization’s $300 million cost. Some have asked how it climbed to this number since it was reported as being $150 million previously. At the June 7^th Council Meeting, Community Services Director Ralph Bosek “publicly assumed blame for that figure, stating that it was an estimate which was made when they were putting together the initial PowerPoint presentation on the project.” The City’s share of the $300 million bill is $60 million, according to financial consultant Marc McCauley of Robert Charles Lesser & Co. The rest of the bill will be footed by the developer. We’ve already purchased most of the property at the site but Referendum funds will be used in concert with other funds to finance the Revitalization, including land acquisition, parks, green spaces, street lighting, roads, demolition of rundown buildings, and related infrastructure called for in the Downtown Temple Terrace Revitalization Master Plan aka “the Citizens Plan”.

The Developer Review Committee outlined in the last update has been reviewing the proposals and interviewing the Master Developers. The committee reviewed their Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and was set to review their Request for Proposals (RFP) in the coming weeks when two of our short listed developers abruptly dropped out of the RFP process. Both the Trammel Crow Company and the Downtown Renaissance Alliance pulled out citing various reasons for withdrawing. Trammel Crow gave the recent acquisition of another large project as their main reason while the Downtown Renaissance Alliance has had a tough time from the very beginning. Many on the committee doubted the ability of huge Lennar Homes (the main force behind the Downtown Renaissance Alliance) to make the jump from mindless tract home builder to builders of a sensitive, refined New Urbanist downtown, without any relevant prior experience. At the June 21 City Council Meeting, City Council voted 3 to 2 to let UniCorp, the remaining firm on our developer short list, complete the RFP process. They will submit their RFP to the City on Monday, June 27^th and will be interviewed by both the Developer Review Committee and City Council. At the suggestion of the Committee, UniCorp has wisely added talented David Kitchens of Cooper Carry Architects to their project team. Cooper Carry was the architect/planner for the Downtown Renaissance Alliance before that developer pulled out of the RFP process and will add much needed planning expertise to the UniCorp team. UniCorp presented a draft copy of their master plan at the June 21^st City Council meeting but since Kitchens obviously has not had a chance to work on it, we’ll not yet share our evaluation of that plan.

You may recall that the Torti Gallas planning team created new Design Guidelines and Code (during the creation of the Master Plan) that would be utilized in the downtown or CRA area. This Code allows us to follow the good urban planning principles currently disallowed in our current obsolete Municipal Building Code, things like placing a building close to the street and mixing uses vertically in a single building. These new guidelines and code also include a Developer Design Review Process that will guarantee that the master developer will not wildly deviate from the Citizen/Torti Gallas Master Plan nor design inappropriate architecture for the Revitalization. It is understood that the plan will change but the big moves and larger framework should remain intact. Our logo is “Our City, Our Plan…Our Future.” So we’ll need to insure that our Master Plan remains our plan. Before the Design Guidelines and new Code can start protecting “our plan” it must be put in place by the City and its Council, we’re hoping this happens before the contract with the Developer is signed!

The Developer Design Review Process is recommended to be performed by the Temple Terrace Redevelopment Agency (TTRA) as judged by an outside professional consultant (OC), based upon The Code and The Plan. The Process would insure that any part of the project adheres to the design intent of the planner and the citizens as depicted in the Torti Gallas/Citizen master plan. The process consists of five stages: Conceptual Design Process, Preliminary Design Process, Final Design Process, Construction Document Check, and Construction Check. It is important that the OC be an outside professional consultant because the city could not afford to have the caliber of planner/architect on staff that we’ll need to judge the ongoing developer submissions. Also, having an outside consultant “outside” ensures that there will be less political pressure placed on them by the developer to slide submissions through the process. We must be diligent and steadfast to ensure that our Revitalization remains top-notch at every stage!

In early June the city’s Arts Education Center consultant Jonathan Toppe conducted a citizen input meeting for the proposed Center in the Revitalization area. Mr. Toppe has been hired to assess Temple Terrace’s civic center needs and the Largo Cultural Center, which Mr. Toppe designed, is the prototype for our own theater in size and function. The thirty citizens attending the input meeting suggested it include: a large multipurpose room, a half-dozen classrooms for visual arts, dance, music, and ceramics instruction, a gallery suitable for art exhibits and receptions, a flexible 400-seat theater, and a smaller theater for plays, movies, etc.. The proposed project requires 50,000 square feet and is a $12 million job at today’s costs. Hillsborough County has pledged $500,000 toward the Center, and the City has earmarked $2.5 million in community investment tax proceeds for the project. The city intends to hire a fundraising expert soon and would like to begin a formal fundraising campaign July 1.

While walking on the weekends for the Revitalization Referendum, we’ve been hearing that Temple Terrace is “not big enough/wealthy enough/smart enough/sophisticated enough” to have a downtown as envisioned in our citizen’s plan. Hogwash! This city has its conception in an audacious, innovative plan that created a world class Mediterranean Revival figure-eight golf course community surrounded by 5000 acres of citrus in the middle of what was then a longleaf pine forest on the banks of an ancient river. Our 1922 vision has held its value for eighty years and remains the saving grace of our city. Planning and building well and having Vision merely returns us to our roots.

Lastly, we’ve had some great articles come out recently on our Revitalization, Tampa Bay Metro Magazine did a great story which can be viewed on the City of Temple Terrace Revitalization website. Public Information Officer Paula MacDonald has done a fine job updating the City’s Revitalization website and it now contains a message from Mayor Affronti with an excellent Referendum Bond question and answer, the Robert Charles Lesser financial analysis report for the downtown Revitalization, and various articles of interest including one on the recent awards given to Temple Terrace by The Planning Commission for Planning and Citizen Participation on the Revitalization in 2005. You can e-mail in your own questions for the list to Revitalize@TempleTerrace.com. Check out our updated City website sometime!

Related posts:

1. News (June 17th, 2003)
2. Latest News (February 13th, 2005)
3. Latest News (September 3, 2005)

On December 11, 2004 the Strategic Teamwork and Redevelopment (STAR) redevelopment citizen focus group added four new members: Cheri Donohue, Executive Director of the Temple Terrace Chamber of Commerce (Cheri replaces Ron Govin who was recently elected to the Temple Terrace City Council); Trent Green, Associate Professor at USF’s School of Architecture and Community Design; Rachel Rodgers, local Landscape Architect and activist; and Randy Simmons, Chairman of R.R. Simmons Construction Corp.

On January 27^th, 2005 our stellar Town Planner Team (which consists of Torti Gallas and Partners, planners; Robert Charles Lesser & Co., LLC, financial feasibility and market consultants; Hall Planning and Engineering, traffic engineering; and King Engineering, site and civil engineering) presented their Final Master Plan (before the Developer phase). For details on this meeting please visit the City of Temple Terrace Redevelopment website. The Town Planning Team unveiled two important documents at the January 27^th meeting. The first is a Draft version of the Master Plan document which contains the Master Plan for the entire 225 acre CRA Downtown Redevelopment area, detailed plans for each of the four downtown quadrants, and the implementation strategy. The Master Plan draft document can be viewed in PDF form. The Planning Team also presented the draft of the Design Code document which outlines the New Urbanist urban, landscape, and architectural standards which will be used to build our redevelopment. This document in conjunction with the Code recommended 5-step Developer Design Review Process will insure that even if small changes are made to the Master Plan, the intent of the citizens and the planning team will be followed. The Design Code draft document may be viewed in PDF form. It is worth noting that the Architectural Standards in the Design Code use Temple Terrace’s own 1920s Mediterranean Revival buildings as the springboard, and photos of our own local historic architecture/details are used to illustrate this Code.

There has been some discussion about whether the City should commission our Planning Team for one more round of revisions to the Master Plan for the chosen Master Developer, as is often done. It is inevitable that the Developer will want to modify the Master Plan in small ways once they’re on board: moving buildings and maybe the exact location of roads (though we do not expect large scale changes). It would be to the benefit of the City that they commission the original Planning Team to create these revisions for the Developer as they are well aware of the issues and citizen input that led to the creation of the Master Plan in the first place and thus would be best suited to modify it without sacrificing it’s quality.

On January 31, 2005 the City of Temple Terrace received five (5) Request for Qualifications (RFQs) for a Master Developer for our Downtown Redevelopment! This is a great turn out and once again represents the strength of our project. The five developers are:

1) Trammel Crow Company, representative projects include Addison Circle in Addison, Texas and the West Avenue Lofts in Austin, Texas.

2) UniCorp National Developments Inc., representative projects include Baldwin Park Village Center and Casselberry Town Center

3) Exceed Corporation, representative projects include Atlantic Station in Atlanta, Georgia and Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio.

4) Downtown Renaissance Alliance, the Alliance has retained Cooper Carry and local firm Elements as Urban Designers, their representative projects include Mizner Park in Boca Raton, Florida and Bethesda Row in Bethesda, Maryland.

5) Cherokee Investment Partners LLC, representative projects include Cherokee Ashley in Charleston, N.C.

A Developer Selection Committee has been created that will meet in late February to make recommendations for how many of the five firms should be short listed and move on to the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage. The committee consists of Kim Leinbach, City Manager; Ralph Bosek, CRA Director; Joe Motta, City Engineer; Woody Garcia, City Public Works; Lee Huffstuttler, City Finance; Raymond Chiaramonte, Assistant Executive Director of The Planning Commission; Dr. Patrick Finelli, STAR chair and citizen representative; and Grant Rimbey, C.R.T.T. president and citizen representative. There are also three outside advisors to the Committee: Ted Taub, City Attorney; Sheriar Khorsandian, Real Estate consultant; and Craig Dunlap, Financial consultant..

Mike Delk, our Community Development Director, has announced that he will be leaving the City of Temple Terrace for a similar position in Clearwater. This may be an opportunity for the City to hire a new Community Development Director with direct experience in New Urbanism, which is the planning direction of our Redevelopment. Since the Redevelopment has it’s own code that will allow good building practices such as building closer to the street and allowing mixed uses in a single building (mixed use), many hope that an expanded version of our Redevelopment Code will eventually be utilized alongside our existing Building Code, for the rest of the city. The new Code will be utilized by developers because of incentives like faster permitting times and an increased chance of project success. Sadly, our existing Building Code is in need of a massive overhaul as following it verbatim merely produces more mindless sprawl (as can be seen in some of the new construction north of Fowler). It makes little sense to eradicate sprawl in our downtown area and encourage it’s construction in other areas. A New Urbanist savvy Community Development Director would help speed the application of this city-wide New Urbanist Building Code.

There has been some paranoia lately about the proposed Density of our Redevelopment. First, the proposed density of the redevelopment is only 900 multi-family residential units, not 1500 as a recent door to door flyer mentioned. Secondly, our comprehensive plan limits us to a maximum average of 25 units/acre. Keep in mind that this density falls in between that of Channelside and the denser areas of Hyde Park Village. Neither of those projects have huge traffic problems, nor are they teeming with people. Lastly, some have claimed that our new downtown area will be as urban as New York City. Keep in mind that New York City midtown has densities of 400 units/acre!

There has also been fear generated regarding the issue of Eminent Domain as it applies to some of the property owner(s) in the Southeast Quadrant that don’t want the city to acquire their land for the Redevelopment. The issue seems to revolve around whether property taken under Eminent Domain includes an ultimate use by another private party. Since we envision the southeast quadrant parcels being turned into park land for public use it’s hard to see how this issue applies?

The Busch Boulevard Beautification that is being spearheaded by the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has cleared another hurdle. The projects plan is to improve the appearance of Busch Boulevard between Interstate 275 and 56^th Street. City and county officials have earmarked $570,000.00 in state transportation enhancement funds for the project. “MPO Chairman Shawn Harrison states the money will be available in 2008, but we hope construction can be well under way by then. The cost to implement the plan for the 4 mile stretch is estimated to be about $3 million.”

Regarding other Redevelopment activity in Northeast Hillsborough County, the County has been facilitating citizen workshops to collect input for a Thonottosassa Community Plan. The plan designates Main Street as the community’s future central hub. Many in the community envision their new Main Street as a central meeting place where senior citizens can visit a clinic, folks can drop by the sheriff’s substation, and others can get a cup of coffee.

There is also a grassroots effort underway to improve the appearance of Nebraska Avenue. The Florida Department of Transportation has agreed to reduce the number of lanes from four to two lanes between Zack and Hillsborough Avenue which makes room for “a left-turn lane in the middle, bike lanes on the side, and landscaping.” Asphalt repaving will occur between Sligh and Kennedy. Construction is expected to begin in early 2006 and take about 2-1/2 years. Frank Roder of the Southeast Seminole Heights Civic Association envisions the future Nebraska “as a grand boulevard…that is an entry way into Tampa.”

Lastly, we’ll end with some Questions and Answers culled from questions we’ve received over the previous months.

Q. Isn’t the proposed eighteen story tower out of character in Temple Terrace?

A. The tower in our downtown will not be one of those awful Clearwater Beach glass condo towers, but will be more similar to the beautifully proportioned Snell Arcade tower, circa 1925, in downtown St. Petersburg. This tower is close to 14 stories but it doesn’t seem out of place even though it is immediately surrounded by 3 to 4 story buildings. This building also has an indoor/outdoor arcade on the first floor with shops and a post office.
1925 Snell Tower and Arcade, St. Petersburg, Fl.

There are many graceful and unobtrusive tall buildings in our area to study. The Downtown area will have it’s own Design Code that will dictate that the tower be in the Mediterranean Revival style, and that it’s massing fits with the rest of the redevelopment (and our city).

Q. Once the Developer is brought on board, how will we insure they build our master plan?

A. The Town Planning Team has created two important documents: The Master Plan drawings and the Design Code booklet. One is not more important than the other as they both describe different aspects of the same project—the visual and the descriptive–they are mutually supporting. Within the Design Code document is delineated a 5-step Developer Design Review Process that will insure that even if the developer makes small changes to the Master Plan the intent of the citizens and the planning team will be adhered to. It is recommended that the review process be performed by the Temple Terrace Redevelopment Agency (TTRA) and is handled by an Outside Professional Design/Planning Consultant. Obviously, this Consultant would have direct experience with New Urbanist Downtown Redevelopment, preferably in Florida.

Q. I don’t think that something on such a grand scale can succeed in TT. I feel that the citizens here can not support something as upscale as what seems to be proposed. Have they really done a market analysis of the residence of TT. Are they targeting the real demographics of TT?

A. As the term Revitalization implies, they’re dynamic, not static. Our initial phases of the project will lay the groundwork for the later, more upscale work. Great revitalizations have a way of, well, revitalizing–they create a revitalization energy that moves outward from the center to other areas on the periphery and they begin to be revitalized. This is called a “halo effect” and can be seen in such Florida redevelopments such as CityPlace in West Palm Beach. The initial phases could very well be upper middle market stuff but after the revitalization proves successful and a “sense of place” is created, later phases could well be more upscale. Regarding conducting a market analysis and demographics study, the Town Planning Team’s real estate and economic feasibility consultant Marc McCauley of Robert Charles Lesser & Co. has already conducted an in depth market and demographic study and they feel comfortable that our demographics can support our Redevelopment as depicted in the Master Plan. Regarding the upper range condos, again, probably not in the very first phase. In his report Marc indicates that luxury condos are a possibility in the mid to long term. He suggests Urban Townhomes in the short, mid, and long term as well as Stacked Townhomes/Condos and Traditional Condos (Flats). To fully analyze Marc McCauley’s “Preliminary Matrix of Projected Market Opportunities for Downtown Temple Terrace” please review the July 19^th, 2004 CRTT update.

Q. The planner has depicted in the master plan that a new road be built linking existing Temple Heights Road with Ridgedale Road. Wouldn’t a new two lane road cutting through the middle of the Little League complex create a dangerous situation for our kids?

A. In actuality, the proposed road (shown in white below on the “after” map) would not infringe on any of the baseball fields but would merely provide a road for local traffic that already exists in this area as folks make their way from 56^th Street to Ridgedale.

See the following before and after maps:

Before After, proposed road indicated in white

The proposed east/west road was originally intended when the city was planned in the 1920s and you can still see remnants of it (such as the horseshoe) in the “before” photo. Currently, many residents north of Bullard cut through the Corpus Christi parking lot on a daily basis—in fact everyone I know who lives north of Bullard does it. They weave their way through the parking lots, (sometimes fast, sometimes not) which is full of kids being dropped off at Corpus Christi, playing at the playground, and going from one baseball field to another. People already use this route, and the situation is already dangerous. What the planning team proposes is take this already existing traffic pattern and give it a real road, not to make the situation more dangerous, but to make it safer. The traffic that you would have on the proposed new two lane road would be the same traffic you currently have illegally cutting through the existing parking lot. But instead of dangerously cutting through a parking lot, endangering everyone, they would be given a two lane road of their own where we could control their speed via speed tables, traffic calming, landscaping, etc. (how about a cross walk with a light between the baseball fields? It is more than they have now) and Corpus Christi would no longer have to worry about motorists cutting through their parking lot putting their church members at risk and creating a liability and a hazard. Folks are cutting through that parking lot because there is no direct east/west road between Mission Hills and Bullard, we may as well give them a road and make it safer and better for all. There is a solution to this problem where everyone can win! The new proposed road would also create a formal entry for the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club, which is something they don’t have now.

Related posts:

1. Latest News (June 22, 2005)
2. Latest News (February 22, 2004)
3. Latest News February 14, 2003

At the May 4^th City Council Meeting, the Temple Heights Townhomes project came before Council for final site plan approval. This is noteworthy because the project will be located in the Northwest portion of the Community Redevelopment Area. Because the Master Plan and Design Guidelines for the CRA District are not yet in place, the project was approved as merely another conventionally planned and designed townhome project. Hopefully no more of our precious CRA land will be sacrificed to the lackluster building standard that has become recently acceptable in Temple Terrace. For more on this subject please see the Q & A section below.

As a kick off for the June Public Charrettes, the City of Temple Terrace and our Town Planner Team hosted the Downtown Revitalization Workshops on May 14^th and May 15th. Nearly 350 people attended the kick-off presentation the evening of Friday, May 14^th. The following day, 350 citizens returned to participate in the two Hands-On Design Sessions, with an open house at the end of the day. At the Design Sessions, Temple Terrace citizens had an “opportunity to assist in planning the new Downtown Redevelopment Area. Torti Gallas and Partners, the City’s planner for the project, organized the public planning workshops (or charrettes), and during the planning sessions, every citizen had the opportunity to express ideas.” The Charrette process is new to our area and was greeted with enthusiasm. Since the Revitalization of Temple Terrace is a grassroots, citizen-led movement it makes perfect sense that the citizenry of Temple Terrace should play a big part in the design of our new Downtown!

NOTE: The 22 citizen-generated town plans that were created during the Hands-On Design Sessions later became the basis of the Master Plan(s) the Town Planner Team developed for the June Public Charrettes.

There was a Temple Terrace Community Redevelopment Agency (TTRA) meeting on May 18th, 2004. The three items on the agenda were 1) “Purchase Approval – 56^th Street Equity Group Partnership Property at Chicago Avenue and 56^th Street” (Dollar General, Just Brakes, and U.S Postal Annex), 2) “Purchase Approval – Former Havana Palms Restaurant (8615 N. 56^th Street), Pending Satisfactory Completion of the Remaining Due Diligence Items.” and 3) “Purchase Offer – Initial Purchaser Offer for Beacon Plaza.(117 Bullard Parkway)”. As you may recall, Beacon Plaza is owned by the family of City Council member Frank Chillura, they have 90 days to respond to the city’s generous purchase offer (for more on “why is the City is acquiring land?”, please see the Q & A section below). All three motions were later approved by the City Council with Council member Chillura abstaining from the vote on his own property.

Regarding the Busch Boulevard beautification efforts from Florida Avenue to 56th Street, Tampa’s “transportation department is seeking $4 million in state and federal grants to bring the Busch Boulevard beautification plan to reality.” With the addition of trees, crosswalks, and benches the proposed changes to the corridor appear to be mostly cosmetic, but it’s a start. Many think the corridor needs to be completely and fundamentally re-thought from the ground up. If the grant is approved, the money won’t be available until at least 2009.

Drum roll please….On June 14^th the City of Temple Terrace and its Town Planner Team kicked off the Downtown Revitalization Master Plan Public Charrettes. Please visit the City of Temple Terrace’s website for an excellent overview of the Public Charrettes. The Charrettes lasted from Monday, June 14^th to Saturday, June 19^th and were attended by over 1000 participants!

On Monday, Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners, our town planners, opened up the Public Charrettes with a Presentation titled “Implementing the Vision: What You Have Told Us”. At the presentation Neal described how the planners analyzed the 22 citizen generated plans created during the May Workshops and derived Twelve Guiding Concepts or Ideas for the creation of the preliminary Downtown Master Plan, they are:

1. Sense of Place

2. Pedestrian Friendly Environment

3. High Density, Mixed-Use Environment

4. Public Squares and Parks

5. Central Open Space (Emerald Necklace)

6. Main Street as Part of New Street Grid

7. Improved Character of 56^th Street

8. Concentration of Civic Uses

9. Turquoise Necklace (fountains, reflecting pools)

10. Unifying Architectural Character (based on own superb 1920s Mediterranean Revival architecture)

11. Gateways

12. Riverfront Park

On Tuesday, Retail, Residential, and Market Analysis consultant Marc McCauley of the respected firm Robert Charles Lesser & Co. LLC, presented on the “Development Program.” At the presentation Marc distributed a Preliminary Matrix of Projected Market Opportunities for Downtown Temple Terrace which gives a preliminary overview of the wide range of market types we could explore in the Downtown Revitalization. These prices are preliminary and are pending development of the complete Master Plan.

As a side note to McCauley’s presentation, their was recent mention in a local newspaper of citizens attending the Charrettes, “many of them organized” who “came out to speak their concerns about the project, and the large expenditure of taxpayer money that’s going into it.” Many folks attended all of the Charrette presentations during the week and did not see the organized group that is implied above, what we did see was about five citizens who weren’t on board with the Revitalization for varying reasons. Marc McCauley’s presentation on Tuesday probably had the most organized opposition (by two people) of any of the presentations. Our Town Planning Team is composed of some of the finest experts in their fields and the CRTT is of the mind that it is safe to trust their expert opinions. Consultant Marc McCauley has done voluminous demographic and marketing research to back up his Preliminary Matrix of Projected Market Opportunities for Downtown Temple Terrace presented above, and though he has not distributed this research material to every citizen in the city for their perusal, we believe it is prudent to not only hire the best experts one can find, but it is also prudent to trust that they are capable of accomplishing their jobs with alacrity.

Back to the Charrettes, on Wednesday, June 16^th, Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners again presented, this time on “Implementing the Vision: Proposed Concepts”. Neal presented the initial three versions of their preliminary Master Plan and pointed out the positives and negatives of each plan. These three plans were to be later boiled down to one. Thursday, involved a discussion about what turned out to be the most controversial issue in the May Workshops, “The Waterfront and the Public Space”. It was pointed out that the riverfront land was the most expensive land in the Revitalization area and that their was enough acreage available to develop some of the land and still leave the land that borders the river as a public park.

Friday, June 18^th brought a Developer Stakeholder Meeting that was attended by sixteen interested Developers, some from as far away as Charleston and New York. The main developer concerns were taming 56^th Street, Doral Oaks Apartments, and the need for the City to acquire the last remaining Revitalization area out parcels. CRA Director Ralph Bosek has mentioned that additional developers have contacted him since that meeting and expressed interest in the project. Friday evening our Traffic Consultant Rick Hall of Hall Engineering presented on “56^th Street.” Rick mentioned that narrowing the road down to two lanes was out of the question because of traffic volume, and that he had met with the local FDOT representative that afternoon and they were willing to work with the City to improve 56^th Street. In the final preliminary Master Plan (again refer to the City of Temple Terrace website) Rick proposed adding a local access lane on the east and the west of existing 56^th Street. Thus, local traffic would not have to venture onto the main four lane arterial in trips around town. Landscaping would also be added on the center median and on the sides of the road. The proposed shorter block sizes of the Master Plan would allow additional traffic lights that would make it easier to cross 56^th Street and would also slow down traffic. On Saturday, the last day of the Charrettes, the final Master Plan was presented along with the three colored pencil renderings, all of which can be seen on the City of Temple Terrace website. A standing ovation brought a close to the Public Charrettes.

On June 24^th, the Temple Terrace Downtown Revitalization drawings were presented by Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners at the Florida Salon of the annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism held in Chicago, Illinois. The project was warmly received. The New Urban News and the Creative Tampa Bay Newsletter have also covered the Revitalization. Mike Dunn of the Tampa Tribune gave our project excellent coverage in his June 20 article. Ernest Hooper of the St. Petersburg Times wrote a story titled “It’s French for yes, we want your opinion” (June 16, 2004) outlining the impact our little project could have on our region. Kudos to our Public Relations consultant Lani Czyzewski!

Lastly, we’ll again end with some Questions and Answers culled from questions we’ve received over the last few months. At the end we include some of the questions and answers from the June Charrette newspaper which was bulk mailed to every address in Temple Terrace. The City has done an extraordinary job trying to inform each and every citizen about the Downtown Revitalization.

Q. How many developers will be involved in this project?
A. It is our hope that we have multiple developers, not just one, because that would give the Revitalization a more varied appearance (as though created by many hands) as opposed to having one developer creating a monolithic and unvaried project ala Disney. In reality there could be a developer for each building type—residential, civic, cultural, etc.. Another idea that was suggested by Neil Payton of Torti Gallas is to have a Master Developer with the other Developers working beneath him/her. This would make it easier to keep control in the multiple developer scenario. The City also plans to hire a Municipal Development Consultant as a liason between the Developers (“a shark on our side”) and the City and this entity would help write the Developer RFQ. This person would obviously be extremely savvy regarding the developer world and would be able to bring in the very best developer teams like the very best Town Planner teams were brought in previously.

Q. How is it possible to propose that an eighteen story condo tower be built in Temple Terrace, isn’t this against Code?

A. Our planners are writing a special form-based code (our current Code is numerically-based) called FormCode that will apply only to the Downtown Revitalization area (the four quadrants of 56^th Street and Busch). This Code will make it possible bring buildings close to the street, vary building heights, mix uses and buildings of different “zones” vertically and horizontally and basically allow all of the good planning and building practices that are illegal under our current antiquated City Building Code. For the rest of the City, many want to see a version of the FormCode made an alternate alongside our existing old City Building Code. The FormCode would be used by builders because it would offer incentives like faster permitting times and greater chances of project success.
Q. Parts of the architecture as represented in the Torti Gallas street renderings look a lot like “Old Tampa” or “old Ybor City”, since we don’t want to be seen as remaking ourselves in the image of Tampa, or Ybor, could we use Temple Terrace’s own 1920s Mediterranean Revival as our inspiration instead?

A. The renderings are only preliminary and the style of the architecture was derived at the last minute to “test the waters.” We believe the Mediterranean Revival direction is the correct direction for our specific Revitalization, and not any old Mediterranean Revival, but our specific version in Temple Terrace. Our own version of Mediterranean Revival is found nowhere else and this architecture best typifies the character and essence of Temple Terrace better than any other “style” to date. Conversely, architect Grant Rimbey is working with the planners at Torti Gallas regarding “directing them to local examples of this architecture that best typify the Temple Terrace style, and other observations he’s made in this regard.” Torti Gallas will incorporate this information into the design guidelines they are creating for the our Downtown Master Plan.
Q. I know the Downtown Revitalization Master Plan encompasses all four corners of 56^th and Busch, what can be done in areas like the Northwest corner that has the K-Mart?

A. Considering the northwest corner, there are many things that can be done to improve the appearance and function of an existing conventionally designed strip shopping center with seas of asphalt out front, short of demolition. One solution that has gained acceptance recently is to add Liner Buildings. Liner Buildings are small, narrow retail shops placed next to the street that are used on the periphery of large strip mall parking lots to create a bona fide street edge. Liner buildings improve appearance, increase density and as a fairly easy retrofit, they address the inherent ugliness of the typical strip mall.

Q. So, how much is all of this costing us now and what/when will we have to pay in the future?
A. The City has financed the land purchases with short term borrowing. We plan to recover all or most of this investment when we sell the land to a developer, hopefully by late next year. The interest on this borrowing is capitalized, meaning we do not have to pay the interest until the notes come due in about 2 and 1/2 years. Most of the parcels in the Southeast quadrant that the city has already acquired are either leased out or about to be leased. It has been a surprise to the city but it actually has a surplus of revenue because of these new short term leases. To finance future public infrastructure on the redevelopment site, which will include as a minimum, water and sewer pipes, new City Hall, and a Civic Center, a Bond Issue will be necessary–which means we’ll need to go our for a Public Referendum. We are in need of another fire station and a new police station, and we likely will include those needs in the bond issue as well.
Q. Why is the City in the land acquisition process?

A. The City owning most or all of the property in the southeast quadrant of the redevelopment area will ensure that its master plan is built. The fewer number of landowners in the redevelopment project area, the less impedance to complete redevelopment. By completing the planning and land acquisition phases at the same time, years of time will be saved in the redevelopment effort. So many communities that hire developers first and planners second end up with developments that may make money for the developer but don’t meet the needs of the community. While the City is liable for all costs of the land purchases, including interest, taxes, and operating costs, three of the four properties already purchased (or in the process of being purchased) have tenants who are paying rent to the City. To date, these rents have far exceeded total operating costs, thereby creating positive cash flow during the pre-construction period.

In addition, it is in the city’s best interests to gain control of as many of the CRA parcels in the Southeast quadrant as possible, as soon as possible. Simply put, the creation of the Downtown Master Plan will increase the value of the land within the CRA, which will make it more difficult to acquire later on. When the developers come on board, the best developers will be attracted to a project that has as many contiguous parcels as possible already assembled. The City has acted wisely by adding enormous value to the project by their recent CRA land acquisitions and it is doing what no private entity could do—that is, spending years patiently assembling a Redevelopment area. Our Community Redevelopment Agency, City Council, and STAR deserve our praise for their visionary and progressive thinking!
Q. Why is redevelopment a good investment for the City?
A. Investing in the redevelopment area will help the City in several ways. First, as property values increase in the redevelopment area, there should be a positive ripple effect in property values throughout Temple Terrace. The more the City has to offer on the way of attraction for its citizens, the more demand there will be for houses, townhouses, condominiums, apartments, and commercial property. As demand increases, so do prices. Since property taxes paid to the City are tied to property values, the City can collect more taxes without an increase in tax rates. Temple Terrace has been on the low end of the property value increases over the last five years, and that could change with successful redevelopment. Secondly, the City and County have executed a joint agreement whereby the County will give the City 100% of the ad valorem taxes collected over next ten years from the increase in values of property located within the City’s redevelopment area.

GR 719/04

Related posts:

1. Latest News (July 19, 2004)
2. Latest News (February 22, 2004)
3. Latest News (April 11, 2004):

At the May 4^th City Council Meeting, the Temple Heights Townhomes project came before Council for final site plan approval. This is noteworthy because the project will be located in the Northwest portion of the Community Redevelopment Area. Because the Master Plan and Design Guidelines for the CRA District are not yet in place, the project was approved as merely another conventionally planned and designed townhome project. Hopefully no more of our precious CRA land will be sacrificed to the lackluster building standard that has become recently acceptable in Temple Terrace. For more on this subject please see the Q & A section below.

As a kick off for the June Public Charrettes, the City of Temple Terrace and our Town Planner Team hosted the Downtown Revitalization Workshops on May 14^th and May 15th. Nearly 350 people attended the kick-off presentation the evening of Friday, May 14^th. The following day, 350 citizens returned to participate in the two Hands-On Design Sessions, with an open house at the end of the day. At the Design Sessions, Temple Terrace citizens had an “opportunity to assist in planning the new Downtown Redevelopment Area. Torti Gallas and Partners, the City’s planner for the project, organized the public planning workshops (or charrettes), and during the planning sessions, every citizen had the opportunity to express ideas.” The Charrette process is new to our area and was greeted with enthusiasm. Since the Revitalization of Temple Terrace is a grassroots, citizen-led movement it makes perfect sense that the citizenry of Temple Terrace should play a big part in the design of our new Downtown!

NOTE: The 22 citizen-generated town plans that were created during the Hands-On Design Sessions later became the basis of the Master Plan(s) the Town Planner Team developed for the June Public Charrettes.

There was a Temple Terrace Community Redevelopment Agency (TTRA) meeting on May 18th, 2004. The three items on the agenda were 1) “Purchase Approval – 56^th Street Equity Group Partnership Property at Chicago Avenue and 56^th Street” (Dollar General, Just Brakes, and U.S Postal Annex), 2) “Purchase Approval – Former Havana Palms Restaurant (8615 N. 56^th Street), Pending Satisfactory Completion of the Remaining Due Diligence Items.” and 3) “Purchase Offer – Initial Purchaser Offer for Beacon Plaza.(117 Bullard Parkway)”. As you may recall, Beacon Plaza is owned by the family of City Council member Frank Chillura, they have 90 days to respond to the city’s generous purchase offer (for more on “why is the City is acquiring land?”, please see the Q & A section below). All three motions were later approved by the City Council with Council member Chillura abstaining from the vote on his own property.

Regarding the Busch Boulevard beautification efforts from Florida Avenue to 56th Street, Tampa’s “transportation department is seeking $4 million in state and federal grants to bring the Busch Boulevard beautification plan to reality.” With the addition of trees, crosswalks, and benches the proposed changes to the corridor appear to be mostly cosmetic, but it’s a start. Many think the corridor needs to be completely and fundamentally re-thought from the ground up. If the grant is approved, the money won’t be available until at least 2009.

Drum roll please….On June 14^th the City of Temple Terrace and its Town Planner Team kicked off the Downtown Revitalization Master Plan Public Charrettes. Please visit the City of Temple Terrace’s website for an excellent overview of the Public Charrettes. The Charrettes lasted from Monday, June 14^th to Saturday, June 19^th and were attended by over 1000 participants!

On Monday, Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners, our town planners, opened up the Public Charrettes with a Presentation titled “Implementing the Vision: What You Have Told Us”. At the presentation Neal described how the planners analyzed the 22 citizen generated plans created during the May Workshops and derived Twelve Guiding Concepts or Ideas for the creation of the preliminary Downtown Master Plan, they are:

1. Sense of Place

2. Pedestrian Friendly Environment

3. High Density, Mixed-Use Environment

4. Public Squares and Parks

5. Central Open Space (Emerald Necklace)

6. Main Street as Part of New Street Grid

7. Improved Character of 56^th Street

8. Concentration of Civic Uses

9. Turquoise Necklace (fountains, reflecting pools)

10. Unifying Architectural Character (based on own superb 1920s Mediterranean Revival architecture)

11. Gateways

12. Riverfront Park

On Tuesday, Retail, Residential, and Market Analysis consultant Marc McCauley of the respected firm Robert Charles Lesser & Co. LLC, presented on the “Development Program.” At the presentation Marc distributed a Preliminary Matrix of Projected Market Opportunities for Downtown Temple Terrace which gives a preliminary overview of the wide range of market types we could explore in the Downtown Revitalization. These prices are preliminary and are pending development of the complete Master Plan.

As a side note to McCauley’s presentation, their was recent mention in a local newspaper of citizens attending the Charrettes, “many of them organized” who “came out to speak their concerns about the project, and the large expenditure of taxpayer money that’s going into it.” Many folks attended all of the Charrette presentations during the week and did not see the organized group that is implied above, what we did see was about five citizens who weren’t on board with the Revitalization for varying reasons. Marc McCauley’s presentation on Tuesday probably had the most organized opposition (by two people) of any of the presentations. Our Town Planning Team is composed of some of the finest experts in their fields and the CRTT is of the mind that it is safe to trust their expert opinions. Consultant Marc McCauley has done voluminous demographic and marketing research to back up his Preliminary Matrix of Projected Market Opportunities for Downtown Temple Terrace presented above, and though he has not distributed this research material to every citizen in the city for their perusal, we believe it is prudent to not only hire the best experts one can find, but it is also prudent to trust that they are capable of accomplishing their jobs with alacrity.

Back to the Charrettes, on Wednesday, June 16^th, Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners again presented, this time on “Implementing the Vision: Proposed Concepts”. Neal presented the initial three versions of their preliminary Master Plan and pointed out the positives and negatives of each plan. These three plans were to be later boiled down to one. Thursday, involved a discussion about what turned out to be the most controversial issue in the May Workshops, “The Waterfront and the Public Space”. It was pointed out that the riverfront land was the most expensive land in the Revitalization area and that their was enough acreage available to develop some of the land and still leave the land that borders the river as a public park.

Friday, June 18^th brought a Developer Stakeholder Meeting that was attended by sixteen interested Developers, some from as far away as Charleston and New York. The main developer concerns were taming 56^th Street, Doral Oaks Apartments, and the need for the City to acquire the last remaining Revitalization area out parcels. CRA Director Ralph Bosek has mentioned that additional developers have contacted him since that meeting and expressed interest in the project. Friday evening our Traffic Consultant Rick Hall of Hall Engineering presented on “56^th Street.” Rick mentioned that narrowing the road down to two lanes was out of the question because of traffic volume, and that he had met with the local FDOT representative that afternoon and they were willing to work with the City to improve 56^th Street. In the final preliminary Master Plan (again refer to the City of Temple Terrace website) Rick proposed adding a local access lane on the east and the west of existing 56^th Street. Thus, local traffic would not have to venture onto the main four lane arterial in trips around town. Landscaping would also be added on the center median and on the sides of the road. The proposed shorter block sizes of the Master Plan would allow additional traffic lights that would make it easier to cross 56^th Street and would also slow down traffic. On Saturday, the last day of the Charrettes, the final Master Plan was presented along with the three colored pencil renderings, all of which can be seen on the City of Temple Terrace website. A standing ovation brought a close to the Public Charrettes.

On June 24^th, the Temple Terrace Downtown Revitalization drawings were presented by Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners at the Florida Salon of the annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism held in Chicago, Illinois. The project was warmly received. The New Urban News and the Creative Tampa Bay Newsletter have also covered the Revitalization. Mike Dunn of the Tampa Tribune gave our project excellent coverage in his June 20 article. Ernest Hooper of the St. Petersburg Times wrote a story titled “It’s French for yes, we want your opinion” (June 16, 2004) outlining the impact our little project could have on our region. Kudos to our Public Relations consultant Lani Czyzewski!

Lastly, we’ll again end with some Questions and Answers culled from questions we’ve received over the last few months. At the end we include some of the questions and answers from the June Charrette newspaper which was bulk mailed to every address in Temple Terrace. The City has done an extraordinary job trying to inform each and every citizen about the Downtown Revitalization.

Q. How many developers will be involved in this project?
A. It is our hope that we have multiple developers, not just one, because that would give the Revitalization a more varied appearance (as though created by many hands) as opposed to having one developer creating a monolithic and unvaried project ala Disney. In reality there could be a developer for each building type—residential, civic, cultural, etc.. Another idea that was suggested by Neil Payton of Torti Gallas is to have a Master Developer with the other Developers working beneath him/her. This would make it easier to keep control in the multiple developer scenario. The City also plans to hire a Municipal Development Consultant as a liason between the Developers (“a shark on our side”) and the City and this entity would help write the Developer RFQ. This person would obviously be extremely savvy regarding the developer world and would be able to bring in the very best developer teams like the very best Town Planner teams were brought in previously.

Q. How is it possible to propose that an eighteen story condo tower be built in Temple Terrace, isn’t this against Code?

A. Our planners are writing a special form-based code (our current Code is numerically-based) called FormCode that will apply only to the Downtown Revitalization area (the four quadrants of 56^th Street and Busch). This Code will make it possible bring buildings close to the street, vary building heights, mix uses and buildings of different “zones” vertically and horizontally and basically allow all of the good planning and building practices that are illegal under our current antiquated City Building Code. For the rest of the City, many want to see a version of the FormCode made an alternate alongside our existing old City Building Code. The FormCode would be used by builders because it would offer incentives like faster permitting times and greater chances of project success.
Q. Parts of the architecture as represented in the Torti Gallas street renderings look a lot like “Old Tampa” or “old Ybor City”, since we don’t want to be seen as remaking ourselves in the image of Tampa, or Ybor, could we use Temple Terrace’s own 1920s Mediterranean Revival as our inspiration instead?

A. The renderings are only preliminary and the style of the architecture was derived at the last minute to “test the waters.” We believe the Mediterranean Revival direction is the correct direction for our specific Revitalization, and not any old Mediterranean Revival, but our specific version in Temple Terrace. Our own version of Mediterranean Revival is found nowhere else and this architecture best typifies the character and essence of Temple Terrace better than any other “style” to date. Conversely, architect Grant Rimbey is working with the planners at Torti Gallas regarding “directing them to local examples of this architecture that best typify the Temple Terrace style, and other observations he’s made in this regard.” Torti Gallas will incorporate this information into the design guidelines they are creating for the our Downtown Master Plan.
Q. I know the Downtown Revitalization Master Plan encompasses all four corners of 56^th and Busch, what can be done in areas like the Northwest corner that has the K-Mart?

A. Considering the northwest corner, there are many things that can be done to improve the appearance and function of an existing conventionally designed strip shopping center with seas of asphalt out front, short of demolition. One solution that has gained acceptance recently is to add Liner Buildings. Liner Buildings are small, narrow retail shops placed next to the street that are used on the periphery of large strip mall parking lots to create a bona fide street edge. Liner buildings improve appearance, increase density and as a fairly easy retrofit, they address the inherent ugliness of the typical strip mall.

Q. So, how much is all of this costing us now and what/when will we have to pay in the future?
A. The City has financed the land purchases with short term borrowing. We plan to recover all or most of this investment when we sell the land to a developer, hopefully by late next year. The interest on this borrowing is capitalized, meaning we do not have to pay the interest until the notes come due in about 2 and 1/2 years. Most of the parcels in the Southeast quadrant that the city has already acquired are either leased out or about to be leased. It has been a surprise to the city but it actually has a surplus of revenue because of these new short term leases. To finance future public infrastructure on the redevelopment site, which will include as a minimum, water and sewer pipes, new City Hall, and a Civic Center, a Bond Issue will be necessary–which means we’ll need to go our for a Public Referendum. We are in need of another fire station and a new police station, and we likely will include those needs in the bond issue as well.
Q. Why is the City in the land acquisition process?

A. The City owning most or all of the property in the southeast quadrant of the redevelopment area will ensure that its master plan is built. The fewer number of landowners in the redevelopment project area, the less impedance to complete redevelopment. By completing the planning and land acquisition phases at the same time, years of time will be saved in the redevelopment effort. So many communities that hire developers first and planners second end up with developments that may make money for the developer but don’t meet the needs of the community. While the City is liable for all costs of the land purchases, including interest, taxes, and operating costs, three of the four properties already purchased (or in the process of being purchased) have tenants who are paying rent to the City. To date, these rents have far exceeded total operating costs, thereby creating positive cash flow during the pre-construction period.

In addition, it is in the city’s best interests to gain control of as many of the CRA parcels in the Southeast quadrant as possible, as soon as possible. Simply put, the creation of the Downtown Master Plan will increase the value of the land within the CRA, which will make it more difficult to acquire later on. When the developers come on board, the best developers will be attracted to a project that has as many contiguous parcels as possible already assembled. The City has acted wisely by adding enormous value to the project by their recent CRA land acquisitions and it is doing what no private entity could do—that is, spending years patiently assembling a Redevelopment area. Our Community Redevelopment Agency, City Council, and STAR deserve our praise for their visionary and progressive thinking!
Q. Why is redevelopment a good investment for the City?
A. Investing in the redevelopment area will help the City in several ways. First, as property values increase in the redevelopment area, there should be a positive ripple effect in property values throughout Temple Terrace. The more the City has to offer on the way of attraction for its citizens, the more demand there will be for houses, townhouses, condominiums, apartments, and commercial property. As demand increases, so do prices. Since property taxes paid to the City are tied to property values, the City can collect more taxes without an increase in tax rates. Temple Terrace has been on the low end of the property value increases over the last five years, and that could change with successful redevelopment. Secondly, the City and County have executed a joint agreement whereby the County will give the City 100% of the ad valorem taxes collected over next ten years from the increase in values of property located within the City’s redevelopment area.

GR 719/04

Related posts:

1. Latest News (July 19, 2004)
2. Latest News (February 22, 2004)
3. Latest News (April 11, 2004):

There was a Temple Terrace Community Redevelopment Agency (TTRA) meeting on March 16th, 2004. The two items on the agenda were a presentation by our town planner Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners and the city’s “intent to purchase” the Havana Palms restaurant property (8615 N. 56^th Street) in the Revitalization area. Neal’s presentation was enthusiastically received (as was the “intent to purchase”) and Neal praised the City and City Council for their foresight in gaining control of Terrace/Kash n Karry Plazas and their continuing desire to acquire more parcels in the Southeast Quadrant. Again, the CRTT is a strong advocate of the City gaining control of as much of the southeast quadrant as possible before the Master Plan is created in June.

Regarding the Busch Boulevard beautification efforts from Florida Avenue to 56th Street. On March 24^th, 2004 the Metropolitan Planning Commission presented there concepts and ideas gathered from their previously held Interactive Open House. Many felt their proposals, which included the addition of period street lighting, landscaping, applied crosswalks and street furniture didn’t go far enough towards taming dreadful Busch Boulevard, but their efforts are a start. In all truthfulness the Busch Boulevard corridor needs to be entirely rethought from the ground up—a sign ordnance and the burying of aerial electrical lines below ground would go a long way, though it would be expensive. Our own Bullard Parkway corridor would be significantly improved if we were somehow able to eliminate those huge power poles on the south side of the road.

CRTT board member Lani Czyzewski and the City have finished putting together the Temple Terrace specific information and photographs for the 12 page Pre-Charrette informational newspapers. These newspapers will contain information about the upcoming charrettes/workshops and New Urbanism, our City’s downtown revitalization direction. The City has ordered 20,000 copies of these newspapers and the first batch will go out to the citizenry with the Temple Terrace Guide phone books that are created by the GFWC Temple Terrace Women’s Club, Inc., in late April. A second batch will go out the beginning of May. Great job Lani!

CRA Director Ralph Bosek and the town planner’s excellent traffic consultant Rick Hall of Hall Engineering have been meeting with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) about what options our City has to “tame” dismal, noisy, deadly 56^th Street. This effort is crucial, as our downtown’s success will be affected if it is adjacent to an unsightly 4-lane highway with a disregarded speed limit. Currently 46,000 vehicles a day cross the Hillsborough River into Temple Terrace. Lately, the FDOT has considered handing over ownership of that portion of 56^th Street between the river and Fowler Avenue to the City of Temple Terrace. Many have asked, “how could the City afford to own and maintain that portion of the road?” As Councilmember Joe Affronti has said regarding the Revitalization in general, “how can we afford not to?” If the city had control of 56^th Street we could increase the right of way or slightly adjust its orientation so that landscaping could be added, we could add traffic calming measures, lower the speed limit, or even possibly narrow it ala Delray Beach. The 56^th Street problem is one we need to confront head on.

One of the concerns I’ve heard lately from citizenry is that we’ll design a great Master Plan for our four Downtown Quadrants but no qualified Development Teams will answer the Developer RFP to construct it. This scenario is extremely unlikely because mixed-use, new urban projects are currently one of the hottest things in the development industry. Last year, 500 developers and consultants attended a two-day Urban Land Institute “Placemaking” conference at Reston Town Center in Virginia. The strong turnout was indicative of developer interest in building mixed-use projects centered on main streets or designed as downtown districts.

Not surprisingly, our preference would be to utilize Development Teams in the Downtown Revitalization that have previous experience in building projects like ours, that is, mixed-use new urban projects; preferably successful ones like CityPlace or Mizner Park. Since Florida has more New Urbanist projects than any other state there is no shortage of Development Teams out there with experience in new urban projects in Florida. Following are a few for your perusal:

1) The Palladium Company

Project: CityPlace, West Palm Beach

2) Haile Plantation Corporation, Gainesville

Project: Haile Village Center, Gainesville

3) The Graham Companies

Project: Miami Lakes Town Center, Miami Lakes

4) Don Castro Organization

Project: Winter Park Village, Winter Park

5) Michaels Development

Project: Belmont Heights, Tampa

6) The Aragon Group at Pensacola

7) New Urban Communities, Delray Beach

Project: Atlantic Grove, Courtyards of Delray, Old Palm Grove—all in Delray Beach,

Botanica, Jupiter Beach, East Village, Fort Lauderdale

Another question that has come up several times is “can retail survive if placed in the southeast quadrant, based on that quadrants recent history and the current demographics?” Firstly, the town planner has a very good real estate advisor, Marc McCauley of Robert Charles Lesser & Co., LLC, on their Project Team so the town planner will not design a Master Plan that doesn’t work. I can say that we won’t be putting back the amount of retail (which was 100%) that was previously in the southeast quadrant as our area is over-saturated with retail as it is. Since we envision that the Revitalization will be mixed use (not single use like it currently is, remember the old adage about not putting all of your eggs in one basket?) we’ll have a combination of retail, restaurants, residential (town homes, condos), office space, civic (City Hall), governmental (U.S. Post Office substation), and cultural (performing arts center). By having the residential located downtown we’ll automatically make that area safer (the term is “eyes on the street”) and the residential component could also provide patrons for the various uses located in the town center. Having the performing arts center, post office and City Hall located there will provide additional patrons before and after shows, errands, etc. Our new downtown could very well become a destination if we want as there’s no competition for this type of place in our area.

Regarding the demographic issue, I would first like to point out that Temple Terrace has the highest median household income, median house value, and education levels of any city in west central Florida. This is based on the entire 6.9 square mile city area; the area around the golf course and near the river would be even higher. If our community can’t support quality retail and restaurants then neither can any other community in our area. As I mentioned earlier our planners real estate advisor will be conducting demographic studies as part of their market analysis but we’re confident we won’t be stuck with corpulent “big box retail” (i.e., Target, Big Lots, Home Depot) as our only retail alternative!

Lastly, many in the CRTT have been asking “okay, lets say we have the Master Plan, design guidelines (a special code that will allow us to create a mixed–use new urban town center), and zoning overlays created for our four downtown quadrants, what about the rest of the City? Should the rest of the City at least have the possibility of being developed in a similar manner to our downtown?” For this to happen we would need to have the town planner create design guidelines for the rest of the city to be used in conjunction with our existing City Building Code. Developers would utilize the new code because there would be incentives offered such as faster permitting time, etc. This new Citywide code aka SmartCode would give developers an option to our current City Building Code which if followed exactly still produces buildings of debatable value. Ralph Bosek mentioned that Torti Gallas will only be creating design guidelines or a new code for the downtown quadrants–the rest of the city will continue to be governed solely by the antiquated City Building Code.

Related posts:

1. Latest News (July 19, 2004)
2. Latest News (July 19, 2004)
3. Latest News (February 22, 2004)

On January 14^th, 2004 the Metropolitan Planning Commission conducted an interactive open house to gather ideas from citizens regarding beautifying Busch Boulevard from Florida Avenue to 56th Street. Some of the ideas that came out of the workshop were having topiary on the median across from Busch Gardens and having Temple Terrace’s trademark Live Oaks in the median as Busch Boulevard heads into Temple Terrace. Temple Terrace residents also preferred a Mediterranean Revival theme for its bus stops and street lighting. Busch Boulevard is, of course, one of the major gateways to our City so this project ties in well with our Revitalization.

There was a Temple Terrace Community Redevelopment Agency (TTRA) meeting on February 17^th, 2004. The two items
on the agenda were the “city’s intent to purchase approximately 2.4 acres of the southeast quadrant” and the schedule for the
Public Charrettes soon to be conducted by Torti Gallas to gain citizen input for the Downtown Revitalization master plan. The additional parcels will be the Parts America, Dollar General, and the U.S. Postal Carriers Annex, all on the 8600 block of 56^th
Street. The resolution of “due diligence” for these parcels was unanimously approved at the following City Council meeting.
The CRTT is a strong advocate of the City gaining control of as much of the southeast quadrant as possible before the
Master Plan is created.

The latest schedule for the Public Charrettes, which are tentatively scheduled to be held in the vacant former T.J. Maxx space,
is as follows (quotes are from Torti Gallas’s RFQ to the City of Temple Terrace):

NOTE: All Temple Terrace citizens, Temple Terrace business owners and/or operators, and Temple Terrace landowners are invited to all sessions.

March 16^th & 17th Pre-Charrette Analysis

• March 16^th, Tuesday @ 7:00pm, Neal Payton of Torti Gallas and Partners will address City Council at the regular
  Council Meeting
• Review of existing studies and ordinances
• Stakeholder identification and input prior to initial meeting and charrette
• Issues identification
• Field survey of existing physical conditions and limitations
• Net/Net analysis of the developable area of Downtown
• Stakeholder interviews
• Start of Market Analysis (Conduct surveys of relevant active and proposed competitive areas and developments,
  conduct interviews, estimate supply, prepare a demand analysis, and program development)

May 14^th Community Kickoff Presentation 7 PM

A Friday evening community visual presentation “designed to create a clearer understanding and awareness of the planning issues
the town faces, Traditional Neighborhood Design concepts, and methods of pedestrian friendly, mixed-use environment in a
manner that improves the quality of life for the majority of residents using the Downtown Area.”

May 15^th Charrette (Hands-On Design Session) 9 AM – 9 PM

Idea Sharing. “Citizens will work side by side with the Torti Gallas Team in small groups to formulate their goals and mark them
down on maps, and then reassemble to present their ideas and maps to the larger gathering.” “This first day will focus the development of the Long-range Strategic Vision for Downtown.”

June 14^th Charrette (On-Site Design Studio) 3PM to 9PM, Presentation at 7PM

June 15^th to 18^th Charrette (On-Site Design Studio) 9AM to 9PM

June 19^th Charrette Summary Presentation 11AM

The purpose of the Charrette is to develop a more refined Master Plan, refine the ideas of the citizenry into a synthesized vision,
and familiarize the citizenry with the tools of good urban design and gain an appreciation of long-range thinking. “The process is
open to the public and informal drop-ins as well as organized feedback is encouraged. This is not a passive process for
participants, but an active one. They will be encouraged to pick-up a pencil and draw, or alternatively, allow the Torti Gallas
team to be their pencils as they describe their vision. The method is a fast-paced, satisfying way to work; feedback comes quickly as the goals are explored, options and scenarios are tested for workability, and existing conditions are ground-checked.”

The final Master Plan document created by Torti Gallas will include a Summary of Market Analysis, Illustrative Drawings, Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Design Codes, Implementation Agenda and Timetable, Cost Estimates, Targeted
Development Incentives, Recommendations for Parking Traffic and Transportation Management, and Proposed Work Plan
and Recommended Actions. We’ll discuss what happens after the Charrette in subsequent CRTT updates.

STAR and CRTT members Jeanne O’Neil and Ken Devane have been conducting informal Pre-Charrette get togethers.
The meetings consist of discussions on the upcoming Charrette process and our city’s New Urbanist direction. They are
intended to gather neighborhood ideas and concerns for the Downtown Revitalization and will be submitted to our planner
Torti Gallas.

One of the worries I’ve heard from citizens is the prospect of the planner creating a New Urbanist Master Plan that is
unbuildable. In reference to this thought I only have to point out the more than 200 New Urbanist projects that are currently
being built in the United States, eighty of those in Florida alone. Florida has more New Urbanist developments than any other
state and New Urbanist project construction “starts” continue to soar. Our town planner is among the very best and the
Marketing Analysis they conduct will allow them to construct a viable Master Plan.

Lastly, members of the CRTT have been talking to the CRA Director and Town Planner about what Pre-Charrette information will be distributed to the citizenry in preparation for the Charrettes in June. Many towns utilize a company in Gaithersburg, Maryland called The Town Paper to print their Pre-Charrette informational newspapers. These 8 to 12 page newspapers are full of informative articles about the Charrette and New Urbanism. The articles are especially concise, easy-to-read and could be used in conjunction with other CRTT-created flyers. The city has decided to go ahead with a customized version of the Pre-Charrette informational newspaper that will be distributed in April with the Temple Terrace telephone books by the Women’s Club and then again to households prior to the Charrette.

GR 2/23/04

Related posts:

1. Latest News February 14, 2003
2. Latest News (April 11, 2004):
3. Latest News (July 19, 2004)

Now the bad news, in our new CRA Director’s words, our Downtown Revitalization has suffered “a setback, but by no means a defeat.” Dover, Kohl & Partners has abruptly withdrawn from consideration as our Downtown Revitalization Town Planners. According to City Manager Kim Leinbach, the firm mentioned it had taken other planning jobs in the interim four months since they were recommended as the city’s selected Town Planner and would not have the resources to tackle our project.

To overcome this apparent setback, CRA Director Bosek is seamlessly and energetically initiating contract negotiations with the next Town Planner on the short list, Torti Gallas and Partners of Silver Spring, Maryland. Torti Gallas and Partners gave a public presentation on the same day as Dover Kohl and the selection committee recommended to the City Manager and CRA (TTRA) that if a contract could not be worked out with Dover Kohl, then Torti would be the preferred choice. Mr. Bosek stated that it is his goal to have a signed contract with the firm by mid-January.

Torti, Gallas and Partners (http://www.tortigallaschk.com/) is a nationally recognized Town Planning and Architecture firm whose Town Planning Philosophy is to “create Town Centers that integrate architecture and the public realm, and ensure that buildings and neighborhoods contribute to the cities and towns of which they are a part, physically, socially, and economically.”

In addition, it remains our hope that the City will consider having our Town Planner implement their version of the New Urbanist SmartCode at the time they create the Master Plan and the Design Guidelines, as an overlay and enhancement to the current City Code.

Lastly, we have received many queries regarding the process our City is using for its Downtown Revitalization; some folks are unclear how it works. The Temple Terrace process is based partially on the planning model of CityPlace, which is a successful mixed use, high density, walkable New Urbanist Downtown Revitalization in West Palm Beach, Florida. CityPlace is much larger than our own 19-acre project but its economic structure (in which the City only pays for the infrastructure) is a superb model for our own Revitalization. In my opinion CityPlace is the best Downtown Revitalization in Florida, and one of the best in the country. Many may remember Kevin Lawler’s presentation in May 2002 providing the first financial model for the viability of revitalizing the SE Quadrant.

Following is a typical Downtown Revitalization Process (based on CityPlace and our own progress thus far):

1) The City of Temple Terrace gains control of the parcels in the Southeast Quadrant Revitalization area and concurrently…

2) Hires a CRA Director to plan, direct, and organize the activities and programs of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) including negotiation for complete property acquisition in the SE Quadrant, facilitation of public charrettes with the planner/designer, design review, marketing, and coordination of the City’s economic development activities.

3) The City chooses a New Urbanist Town Planning firm. After the City gains control of the parcels in the Southeast Quadrant, the selected Town Planner creates a market-driven Master Plan of all four Downtown quadrants and adjacent areas via the Public Charrettes process, where there is intense public involvement. The Design Guidelines and Zoning Overlays for the Downtown quadrants are created simultaneously along with a SmartCode for the rest of the City.

4) The CRA Director and the Town Planner will then use the Master Plan and Design Guidelines to convey the City’s and its citizens’ intent for the design and function of their Downtown to the Development Teams. Later, the CRA Director will work intensely to help select the best Development Teams in order to insure that the design intent of the Citizen’s Master Plan created by the Town Planner is implemented by the chosen Development Teams.

5) A good Town Planner will attract good Development Teams; we prefer Development Team(s) rather than a single developer. More than one developer will mean additional work for the City but the Revitalization will be better by avoiding the clichéd and unvaried appearance that was created by one developer in a short time ala Disney. Historically, downtowns were not created that way! As Development Teams are brought on board, control of some of the Revitalization parcels previously controlled by the City may be transferred to them. The mix of civic buildings and private sector development will be addressed during the planning process. The City may retain some parcels for public buildings and perhaps a parking garage. However, the City intends to get out of the real estate business as soon as it becomes economically feasible.

6) Citizen D’ee Griffith, Council member Jo Jeter, and others, can begin battling for the Townhouse with the best view in our Revitalized Southeast Quadrant!

7) Lastly, it is our hope that the Downtown Revitalization, if accomplished following the proven success of this New Urbanist Process, will kindle a positive Revitalization energy in our Downtown area and the City in general. Optimistically, the Revitalization energy from our Southeast Quadrant will spread outward from the Revitalized area (technically called a “halo effect”) to the three neighboring Downtown Quadrants as well as the adjacent Residential areas—eventually pushing the blighted areas further away from our City Core. This exact scenario is currently taking place at CityPlace in West Palm Beach; please visit that Revitalization if you get the chance!

Related posts:

1. Latest News February 14, 2003
2. Latest News (July 12th, 2003)
3. Latest News (September 20, 2003):

The city manager is in final contract negotiations with the selected town planners, Dover, Kohl & Partners. The Town Planner will be conducting the public charrette to create the master plan for the SE Quadrant (basically the former Publix and Kash N’Karry properties in addition to the previously purchased riverfront property and outparcels yet to be purchased).

As President of CRTT, I have suggested that the City ask the Town Planner to implement a version of the Smartgrowth SmartCode (one of the principals in our selected planning firm, Joseph Kohl, is quoted in this article) at the time they create the Master Plan as an alternative alongside our existing City Code. The CRTT Board has not met on this issue, and it is a recommendation I have made because with its loopholes and inconsistencies, I don’t need to tell anyone what a mess our current Codes are so let’s not miss this opportunity!

In the next couple of weeks the City will have a new CRA Director on board. The City Manager has informed me that a selection committee was formed with representatives from STAR, CRTT and city staff. The City made short list of four candidates for the CRA Director and the selection committee met to review the final four. They are (in alphabetical order):

• Ralph S. Bosek – Resident of Temple Terrace since 1981, past Vice President of TECO, past President and Chief Executive of Bosek, Gibson and Associates, Inc. (a multi-discipline Engineering firm). Holds a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and a Masters degree in Engineering, both from USF.
• Wesley A. Hoaglund – Currently employed as a Redevelopment Specialist in Titusville, Florida with past experience as a Planner Level III in Jefferson, La. and a Planner/Historic Preservation Officer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He has a Bachelor of Science in Economics, Urban Planning, and Political Science, and a Masters degree in Economic Planning and Environmental Administration, both from the University of Wisconsin. He is a Certified Arborist.
• Glenn D. Vann – Currently employed as a Economic Development Coordinator with the City of Miramar, Florida with past experience as a Community Development Coordinator in Gulfport, Mississippi. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Alcorn State University, Mississippi, and a Master of Science in Political Science from the University of Southern Mississippi.
• Gary Wohlforth – Currently employed as an Economic Development Coordinator/Urban Planning Specialist in the City of North Miami Beach, Florida with past experience as a Senior Planner in the City of Miami Beach, Florida and Chief Redevelopment Planner with the City of Daytona Beach, Florida. He has a Bachelor of Science in Economics/Finance from the University of Central Florida and a Master of Science in Economic Development from Florida State University.

At this juncture, I believe one of the most important qualifications our new CRA Director could have is direct experience with a successful downtown (greyfield) revitalization in Florida, preferably New Urbanist. In my opinion, if our new CRA Director is not experienced with our Revitalization direction initially the project will suffer in quality and lost time and we will not be satisfied with the outcome. This knowledge is absolutely critical if we expect our CRA Director (and I firmly believe we should!) to bring in the very best Development Teams, similar to how our previous Director put together a list of the very best Town Planners. We know this has been a costly process, but I am convinced the expense will be well worth it if we get the desired result.

Hopefully, we will receive updates from the City Manager on the status of the U.S. Postal Carriers Annex and Parts America parcels and city staff’s research into Doral Oaks’s rumored “condominium conversion” as recommended by the Strategic Teamwork and Redevelopment (STAR) committee on August 21.

Lastly, for those of you concerned with the City’s proposed South of Bullard road repair project (They will be installing new water lines and repaving the roads. I’m sure you’ve noticed the ribbons on the trees and marker flags). City Engineer Joe Motta states:

1. The streets will not be widened.
2. Every effort will be made to save existing trees.
3. He is not aware of any speeding problems on Burlingame or Glen Arven so at the time of his response, no traffic calming devices (speed bumps or humps) have been considered.
4. Once the preliminary design is complete, they will schedule a Public Information Meeting to explain the project to the residents affected by the proposed construction.
5. The proposed pavement marking (striping, reflectors, etc.) will be determined during final design.”

However, I feel that with regard to #3, it is my view that some type of traffic calming device is needed on Glen Arven and Burlingame, preferably not speedbumps (they’re noisy, ugly, and merely shift a speeding problem to another street)—perhaps speedtables or raised intersections might be acceptable. We definitely don’t want any streets widened, or street trees/landscape islands removed.

There will be a Town Hall Meeting December 8^th at 7:00pm at the Lightfoot Recreation Center, 10901 56^th Street. The Meeting is open forum but we hope it will concentrate on the South of Bullard road project. If you would like to prepare for the Town Hall Meeting we suggest that you review Transportation expert Dan Burden’s excellent pamphlet “Streets and Sidewalks, People and Cars: The Citizens Guide to Traffic Calming.” It’s a great little booklet and an excellent resource.

Grant Rimbey 11/02/03

Related posts:

1. Latest News (December 21, 2003)
2. Latest News November 6, 2002
3. Latest News (July 12th, 2003)